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John Kerry's off-the-cuff moment of diplomacy

Barbara MillerUpdated
Sun 15 Sep 2013, 7:30 AM AEST

It appeared to be an off-the-cuff remark, but a suggestion by US Secretary of State John Kerry, at a London press conference, that Syria could avoid a potential US military strike by surrendering its chemical weapons has had significant and seemingly unintended consequences. Europe correspondent Barbara Miller was at the press conference and describes the moment that seems to at the very least have delayed a direct American military strike on Syria.

Transcript

ELIZABETH JACKSON: It appeared to be an off-the-cuff remark, but a suggestion that Syria could avoid a potential US military strike by surrendering its chemical weapons has had significant and seemingly unintended consequences.

The comment came from the US secretary of state John Kerry during a press conference in London, where he'd been meeting his British counterpart William Hague.

Our Europe correspondent Barbara Miller was at that press conference and describes the moment that seems to at the very least have delayed a direct American military strike on Syria.

BARBARA MILLER: John Kerry kept us waiting.

At first the media was told to arrive at the Foreign Office by 7.30am for a press conference that wasn't due to start for another hour and 10 minutes.

That seemed like a depressingly early start to a Monday morning.

On Sunday came some relief: an email arrived to announce a change of schedule. The media could now arrive at 8am. The press conference had been pushed back to 9.15.

"No-one will be allowed to enter the building after 9am", the mail threatened.

The media dutifully obeyed; arriving at eight on the dot seemed excessive, but the large room had filled up by 8.30, quarter to nine.

Cameras sprang into action every time the door opened, but it would be around another hour before John Kerry and William Hague entered.

The suggestion had been that the press conference would take just 15 or 20 minutes, but John Kerry appeared in no rush to get going.

He waxed lyrical about the relationship between the US and UK; a response to those who said Britain's vote against a military strike on Syria had badly damaged that bond.

He made a passionate case for military action in Syria, arguing that the evidence was overwhelming that the regime had launched a chemical weapons attack on its own people.

And then came the questions.

The first was carefully constructed, and John Kerry seemed to enjoy the challenge.

BRITISH REPORTER: You've now adopted a different tactic, building a different sort of coalition using powerful moral arguments for action against inaction. The logic of that, surely, is that whatever the vote in Congress, the president will go ahead with strikes, the votes can't change his moral position.

JOHN KERRY: Well, I'm not surprised to find here a well-put question that basically tries to get me to answer something that the president hasn't decided.

BARBARA MILLER: Then this question:

AMERICAN REPORTER: Is there anything at this point that his government could do or offer that would stop an attack?

BARBARA MILLER: Perhaps its simplicity caught Mr Kerry off-guard; perhaps he was simply tired from days of talking about the issue, and facing the prospect of days more of trying to convince a sceptical Congress to back military action.

In any case, this was his answer:

JOHN KERRY: Ah, sure. He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week, turn it over - all of it without delay - and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn't about to do it and it can't be done, obviously.

BARBARA MILLER: There were no audible gasps in the room, no sense that something remarkable had been said, but it was there, typed furiously into an iPad by the reporter sitting beside me, scribbled into a notepad in barely legible form by me.

And when we left the press conference it was something new to report, something different. And so it got a bit of coverage. And then a bit more, and suddenly everything changed when the Russians essentially appeared to call Washington's bluff by seizing on the comments.

Now, there are those who'll say John Kerry knew fine well what he was saying, that it wasn't off the cuff at all; those who'll point out that the idea of Syria's chemical weapons being placed under international control had been discussed at the G20 meeting just a few days previously.

But I was there, and if John Kerry's comments were part of a carefully constructed ploy to try and save a president facing possible defeat in Congress over the question of military action, then it was an Oscar-winning performance, finessed by the way he threw his arms in the air as he made the comment: "as if!", the gesture said.

And so an unscripted comment appears to have had a remarkable effect.

But if that sounds odd, think about this: how different would things have been if Barack Obama hadn't effectively backed himself into a corner with his comment last year on the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime crossing a red line?

For the displaced and bereaved civilian population in Syria and the many, many refugees, this political and diplomatic dance must seem so very surreal.